New York’s coolest vintage liquor store signs

You probably won’t find organic wines or imported microbrews in these old-school city liquor stores. Their shabby vintage signs tell us that they’re traditional neighborhood shops where you can pick up decent booze at decent prices.

Casa Oliveira, on Seventh Avenue South near Sheridan Square, opened in 1936. Does the sign still light up? I’ve never seen it at night.

It’s always 1977 at Discount Liquors, on 14th Street and Eighth Avenue, where old New York–type bums hang around outside all night, drunk off their asses.

The Hotel St. George in Brooklyn Heights was once the borough’s largest and most luxurious hotel. Today, part of the complex serves as a dormitory for New York–area college students.

Established in 1933—in other words, as soon as Prohibition was over, some enterprising shopkeeper opened this no-frills liquor store on the Lower East Side, which is still going strong 79 years later.

Old-school signs for old New York drugstores

Amid the Duane Reade-ization of the city, it’s nice to stumble across the kind of independent corner drugstore that was probably named after the pharmacist who originally opened it.

Enjoy their vintage signs while you can, before the pharmacies they’re affixed to morph into Walgreens or Rite-Aids.

Lascoff’s, on 82nd and Lexington, has spanned three centuries. Visit it if only to check out the old-world decor and apothecary equipment.

Isn’t Harold’s for Prescriptions a wonderful name? The store, in Gravesend, also sports a cool 1960s neon sign. This Flickr photo captured it all lit up at night.

I don’t know how long Mittman’s has been in the drug business, but judging by that very stylized sign, it seems that they survived the bad old days on Havemeyer Street and South Third in Williamsburg.

Vintage store signs: faded and falling apart

Some of the letters in this Gertel’s sign don’t look like they light up, yet that’s okay. Seeing the words “bakery” and “luncheon” one on top of the other in that old-time font more than makes up for it.

Luncheon: This old-school word is disappearing fast from the New York vocabulary.

Gertel’s home had been Hester Street since 1914. They relocated near Myrtle Avenue in Clinton Hill in 2008, taking the iconic sign with them.

I have no idea how long G&M Variety Discounts House has been on Broadway in Washington Heights. But judging from the shape of the sign, I’d say since the 1960s.